Educational Inequities Research Draws Attention by New Penn State Center

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 07/20/16

Inequities permeate the American educational experience. Students come from poor families; their teachers aren't as well trained or their schools aren't as well outfitted; they lack access to technology or regular meals. A new center at Penn State will become a repository for data and research on the topic of inequity and the go-to source for evaluating programs and policies intended to address the disparities in order to identify those that have the best impact.

The multidisciplinary Center for Educational Disparities Research (CEDR) is being jointly created by Penn State's Social Science Research Institute and the College of Education. It will be led by Paul Morgan, a professor of education who helped establish the Educational Risk Initiative four years ago. That program was created to provide a "community of researchers" that could work with faculty to develop proposals related to educational risk that could attract funding from sources such as the United States Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences.

The new center expands on that mission by helping researchers go after a broader array of external funding opportunities and to assist in proposal writing, pulling together multi-disciplinary teams of researchers, delivering mentoring and panel reviews, helping faculty gain course releases and hosting speakers and relevant events.

"Researchers will benefit from the expertise of a community of colleagues whose skills can assist them in advancing their planned investigations as well as submitting proposals to external funding organizations," said Morgan in a prepared statement. "Educational inequities can result in societal inequities. Our collective aim is to even the playing field and provide equal opportunities for children."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • person signing a bill at a desk with a faint glow around the document. A tablet and laptop are subtly visible in the background, with soft colors and minimal digital elements

    California Governor Signs Off on AI Content Safeguard Laws

    California Governor Gavin Newsom has officially signed a series of landmark artificial intelligence bills into law, signaling the state’s latest efforts to regulate the burgeoning technology, particularly in response to the misuse of sexually explicit deepfakes. The legislation is aimed at mitigating the risks posed by AI-generated content, as concerns grow over the technology's potential to manipulate images, videos, and voices in ways that could cause significant harm.

  • glowing AI brain composed of geometric lines and nodes, encased within a protective shield of circuit patterns

    NIST's U.S. AI Safety Institute to Collaborate with Anthropic and OpenAI on AI Research

    The U.S. AI Safety Institute, part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is partnering with AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI to collaborate on AI safety research, testing, and evaluation.

  • abstract, minimalist illustration of an educator interacting with geometric shapes and lines representing AI tools in a classroom setting

    5 Lessons Learned from an AI Early Adopter

    A 6th grade ELA teacher offers best practices based on his experience using AI tools and features in the classroom.

  • a glowing gaming controller, a digital tree structure, and an open book

    Report: Use of Game Engines Is Expanding Beyond Gaming

    Game development technology is being utilized beyond its traditional gaming roots, according to the recently released annual "State of Game Development" report from development and DevOps solutions provider Perforce Software.